A man with a weapon hit another small business in Cedar Springs New Year eve. Family Video, at the corner of Main and Muskegon Street (next to Hungry Howie’s), was robbed at about 9:50 p.m. December 31. The man was described as having dark hair and dark clothing. He walked around the store for about 20 minutes without a mask waiting for others to leave, then pulled a stocking cap down over his face with eye holes cut out and approached the counter. He showed the clerks a 5 or 6 inch hunting knife and demanded money. He then walked away to the west, towards Second St.

Officers began to search immediately but did not find the suspect. A canine unit came in from the Wyoming Police Department, and tracked the suspect a short distance, from Second to Beech Street before losing the scent.

This makes the third robbery in just over a week. Admiral was hit on December 22, The Kent Theatre on December 29, and now Family Video on December 31. Each time the clothing has been different, but he has been described as about 5 foot 8 inches, and somewhere between 165 to 200 pounds. On the previous occasions, a weapon has been implied by the man holding his hand in his pocket, but this is the first time a weapon was shown.

Anyone with information should please call the Cedar Springs Police a 616-696-1311, or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345.

11 Responses to “Robber hits Family Video”

If the Police are powerless to stop this kind of thing from happening why do we even have them? A great deal of our tax money goes to the police department. They are there when it comes time to give us parking tickets and harass us law abiding citizens. Why can not not harass the criminals? If we are paying our tax dollars for failure, I say Failure is free! If the cops can not stop it just get rid of them and rely on the county. After all we are already getting robbed every other day, why let the crooks rob us and the City rob us of our tax dollar too?

Do you really think the police are there to prevent crime. They are there to investigate crime after it happens. There is no way they can be every where to stop crime. I guess by your way of thinking all police should be shut down because there is crime all over. Maybe you should help them watch your town like the rest of the little towns do. Setup a neighborhood watch or something. Complaining does nothing toward preventing crime.

There is no way to STOP EVERY crime true. They need to have a roving foot patrol. Get out of the warm car and walk the street at random, times intervals and places. The reason we have crime on main street is because the criminals think there is not a police presence there. They are hitting what they believe to be an easy target. And they are right, they came in and took the money and got away with it. It is what the army does, and it works well. I ask about this the first time the admiral was robbed, and I was told they did patrol main street. I guess not enough because it is hit 3 times in 10 days. Sure we could set up a watch, and watch the place get robbed call the cops and the same thing happens. The police patroling on foot and acting as a detrant will stop it, not a watch. If they do not stop it, or act as a deterant, why are we paying them?

Cedar Springs has what Charlie, 2, maybe 3 police on duty at any given time? How are they supposed to do a foot patrol as well as patrol all the rest of the city too? Should the people of Cedar Springs give up the patrols in other areas of town, just so the police are patrolling the main street corridor on foot? Guess you could always volunteer your time to do foot patrols all day and night. Sounds like you got the experience. And I bet I could count on one hand how many criminals you would catch robbing stores too, in the course of a year. lololol. Amazing.

Of course they cannot foot patrol the entire Main Street 24 hours a day! And I never said that doing that 24 hours a day is the best course (did you read what I wrote?). I said at random times in random places get out of the car and check. Which implies you get back in the car and carry on after that.

So all they have to do is every couple of hours park the car get out and walk for about 15 or 20 min. Check in on the local establishments and make sure all is well. When it is seen that in an area police may show up at any given time, the chance that place will be robbed will go down. I have never seen them do this on Main Street.

Do they ever do it? As far as I can tell, and from what I have seen no. My point is the reason main street is robbed is it is perceived to be an easy target by the criminal element. And…. they are right it is an easy target. It is a fact that 3 times in 10 days they got off scott free. Foot patrols are not so much about catching a criminal. They are about showing a presence.

Walking all of main street would not be practical (I never said to do that). Sitting in the car, and never getting out does not show much of as much of a presence (now does it?). Every time I am home I see the police out two times at night, they are either up at the Gas stations near 131, or I see them when the bar closes and I walk home sitting in their car across from the bar. I have driven through town all hours of the night, and those are the only two places and times I see them.

It is logical to assume that the criminal element picked up on that too. Do you think that 3 times in 10 days they chose Main Street because they were scared they would get caught, or thought it was an easy target?

I ask several years back why we did not outsource the job of our police department to the County. I ask if it would it would save money. The then city manager explained that while it may cost more to have our own police, they were better for the community because being local with them in Cedar every day made them better able to respond to our needs and protect us. I now question if our police would be more effective than the county? Perhaps we should re-visit the issue. I do not want to pay for failure.

Outsourcing to Kent County doesn’t mean more partroling in our area. Do you know that for all of Northern Kent County there are only 2 County Police Officers patroling each shift? How is that going to make thing better for the City of Cedar Springs? The County can’t afford to add more police patroling officers to give Cedar Springs more presents even if the City pays them. So you wouldn’t be giving the City more safety by going through the County.

It’s unfortunate that people need to break the law and threaten individuals to take money that’s not theirs, but that is how things are now days. The City of Cedar Springs was very lucky to have it not affect them for so long, but just like other small communities with small businesses, crime is going to happen. I think the businesses need to consider increasing their security because the Police can not prevent all of the robberies unless the Tax Payers want to employ more officers.